Dr Livingstone I presume?

The first weekend I was in Africa we decided to go to see Victoria Falls.  The thing about being in Africa is that it’s bloody huge; for us in the UK a drive to the nearest town is usually about 15 minutes, whereas from Katima pretty much anywhere you want to go is at least a 2 hour drive.  With Jem and Glenn’s car still being at the garage (after the head gasket escapade on the way to collect us) we had to use a taxi.  Although it is not comfortable sitting in a car with 4 other people in 40 degree heat with no air conditioning, at least the taxis are a lot cheaper than I’m used to. We headed off on the Saturday morning towards the border of Zambia, which is only about a 10 minute drive from Katima.  My first experience of going through the border was quite interesting, but even a week into my trip the novelty had worn off, although I still don’t mind gaining more stamps in my passport.  As UK citizens you have to pay $50 US for the privilege of getting a VISA to go into Zambia, I’m not entirely sure why but I wasn’t going to argue with the big black man behind the counter.  The border posts have come to be a bit of a running joke between us as every time we go to one there is something amusing going on.  The first time I went through the Botswana-Namibia border the lady behind the counter was dressed in a glittery blue evening gown.  Although she looked very pretty, I didn’t think it was really appropriate attire to be wearing in the day in an office.  One of the other times we went through on the way to Zambia we had forgotten to bring our own pens (as you have to fill in a form every time you cross) so we asked to borrow one from the office.  The reply we got was that they were using ’the’ pen at the moment so we would have to wait.  The most amusing thing about this is that there were posters up everywhere stating that the Namibian Border Control is striving to be the best in the World; how they’re going to achieve this with only one pen is beyond me.
Once past the Zambian border town there is nothing but miles and miles of very straight road, bush and mud hut villages.  About an hour into the journey you reach what I can only describe as a forest; huge looming trees surrounding every inch of the view either side of the road, but at that time of the year they looked pretty dead.  The land hadn’t had any rain for a good few months so the leaves just don’t grow, even the soil is black in places where it has been scorched by the sun.  When I went to Livingstone about a month after this when the rainy season had started, the forest looked completely different; all the trees were green and surrounded by lush bush and grass.
Driving this sort of distance in a typical African taxi is definitely an experience to be remembered.  Aside from the fact that the windscreen is cracked all the way from roof to bonnet, you get tangled in the door seal whilst trying to get into the car, things fly off the parcel shelf into your head when the car breaks and we were squashed in the back with 3 fully grown adults, the roads are also full of pot holes so the car swerves from side to side to avoid them.  Not long after we’d started driving through the dead forest the car starts veering (more than usual) and the driver announces that we have a flat tyre.  No problem we think, we’ll just put the spare on right?  Wrong.  The spare is also flat.  The driver tells us that he’ll just get a taxi to the next town with the spare tyre and get in pumped up.  He flags down the next vehicle, jumps in and disappears leaving us with his car.  By this point we’ve already drunk the drinks we bought for the journey, and it’s bloody hot.  There is pretty much no shade as it’s nearing midday and besides the dead trees don’t offer much protection anyway.  We sit for what seems like a decade (but was actually only 2 hours) in the 40 degree heat reading our books whilst shifting every so often in the hope that we will find a spot in the car or by the side of the road that is slightly cooler.  Eventually the taxi driver appeared again in a much nicer taxi than the one he’s driving, newly pumped up tyre in hand.  We decide to make use of the nicer car that’s appeared so pay the flat-tyre driver and clamber into the other car.  Feeling a lot more comfortable than we have for the last 3 or 4 hours we head onwards to Livingstone.  We had booked into a backpackers lodge called Fawlty Towers for the night;  I’m guessing they just liked the John Cleese series as it bared no resemblance to the actual Fawlty Towers.  The rooms were basic but clean and the lodge had a couple of bars and a pool so it was definitely a good choice.  The rest of the evening we mostly drank, swam and played pool, ready to head to Vic Falls the next morning.
Having decided not to get up at 5.30 am to go on the game drive (which mostly involves driving round hoping to find some animals) we left Fawlty Towers at a normal-person time, narrowly avoiding being hit by the falling mangos on our way out (due to the men in the trees shaking them down).  Victoria Falls is on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, with the actual town named Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe side.  On the way into the reserve, lots of black men warned us about carrying shopping bags in because of the baboons.  Mum and I looked a little confused by this but Glenn pointed out that he knew what he was doing as he’s African so we headed to the entrance.
Words cannot describe what it’s like.  The path is really high (about 100 meters) above the river (the Zambeze) so you get an astounding view of the rapids rushing below you and the water falling to fill them.  We went in low season so there is not much mist, meaning you get a really good view.  I’ve been told than in high season when the amount of water falling is massively more, you can hardly see anything as a lot of it is thrown back up into the air as mist.  Whenever you go, the humidity is 100% so within minutes you have sweat dripping down your back, not to mention a bright pink face (it’s hard to tell whether it’s due to the heat or from sunburn).  The path in places is a little less secure than I would like (being completely freaked out by heights), so at some points I was practically edging along as far away from the drop as I could but even so the whole walk is breathtaking.  At one place there is a gap between the cliffs so a wooden bridge crosses to join the path.  Although the bridge is pretty sturdy I had to take it at a run to avoid freaking out, much to the amusement of Mum and Jemma.  Mum actually put a photo of me crossing this bridge on Facebook with a comment that ‘it’s only a little stream’, which in fairness it is, but 100 meters below.  You walk along the cliff tops with the Zambeze thundering along below and the view of Zimbabwe opposite you.  There is not much else I can say to describe the view, it’s something you just have to see in real life.

On the way out of the reserve we headed to the markets to take a quick look.  With Glenn and Jemma slightly ahead of Mum and I, we got a brilliant view of a baboon bounding down a tree, running up to Glenn and grabbing the bag of drinks from his hand.  It happened so quickly that I was left standing speechless with my mouth gaping open and no time to warn Glenn.  It was absolutely hilarious.  The baboon ran away looking quite pleased with himself while we stood trying very hard not to laugh at Glenn, for not listening to the advice the men gave us on the way in.  To make it even more amusing, these men felt the need to say ‘I told you so’ as we passed them again on our way out.  The baboons at Vic Falls are quite used to people due to the amount of tourists and have figured out that they can steal food quite easily.  Usual baboons however are not to be messed with; they are surprisingly big, aggressive, scary creatures and can move at an alarmingly fast pace.  You’d have a job to outrun one.  Apparently they are scared of men but not women.  We did spend a while trying to work out how they knew the difference, but gave up after a short while.

We stopped at the bridge café to regain some energy and try to rid ourselves of the mighty headaches that had appeared (from the sun).  I spent the next two hours or so debating whether I had the guts to do a bungee jump for my birthday.  As most of you will know, every year since my 21st I’ve done some form of adrenaline sport to celebrate my birthday.  Glenn had offered to pay for me to do a bungee as a present, which I had gratefully accepted.  It seemed like such a brilliant idea until I was actually there.  I had come to the conclusion that I just didn’t think I could do it, when the moment came to choose and I agreed.  I’m not entirely sure what happened over the next 10 minutes as it’s all a bit of a blur, but I appeared on the bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe with my weight, jump number and a smiley face written on my arm in red marker pen.  The staff that strap you up ready to jump are really friendly.  I think they were highly amused by my terrified face, but were still very reassuring.  Having been asked to step onto the platform hanging off the side of the bridge, I was told to sit down while they secured the ropes.  The platform itself is a grate, so you get a lovely view of the rapids 370 ft below.  I did my best to look up at Glenn and not down at the drop as by this point I was already shaking a lot.  The guy strapping me up wrapped what looked a lot like an ordinary bath towel round  my ankles, then secured it with a lot of straps and ropes etc.  There was a camera man trying to chat to me during this process, and as you can see from the video I didn’t really respond to many of his questions.  He very quickly decided to give up as I was clearly in too much of a state to chat to him.  I was then told to stand up.  I felt the immediate urge to grab on to the nearest thing, which happened to be the camera man (much to his surprise).  I had to shuffle to the edge of the ledge, looking out at the glorious view of Victoria Falls beneath me.  I was shaking so badly I don’t think anybody thought I would actually be able to do it.  I held my arms high up above my head and on the count of 5...4...3...2...1...bungee! I jumped.

Well jumped may be a little strong, I actually half heartedly lurched off the ledge.  The feeling of falling face down towards the Zambeze is unbelievable, and not in a good way.  It happened so quickly and I was spinning so fast that all I could see was a blur off river, cliffs and sky.  I can’t even describe the feeling.  The first few seconds after I had jumped it actually felt like I was falling to my death; I think my brain could just not comprehend what was happening.  I was brought back upwards with the sharp snap of the bungee and proceeded to bounce up and down for quite a while.  Once I’d slowed down a bit it was a lot more enjoyable as I could actually see what was around me.  I wasn’t sure what to do with my arms so kept holding on to my harness, then letting go, then holding on again.  Once I’d stopped bouncing so much a guy on a harness was lowered down and clipped himself on to me.  The first thing he said was “you can stop shaking now”.  I was pretty speechless at that moment so he shrugged and started to pull me upwards back towards the bridge.  I was lowered onto a ramp on the underside of the bridge which felt like a rickety old thing that would collapse at any minute.  The man that greeted me there also felt the need to tell me to stop shaking, to which I replied “I don’t like bridges”.  In actual fact it’s not the bridge that scared me it was the fact that the bridge was 110 meters above the Zambeze flowing beneath us.  He told me some instructions about getting back up to the top of the bridge which I was too nervous to listen to and sent me on my way.  Finally I reached the steps up to the far side of the bridge where Glenn was waiting for me and we walked back to the jump platform to give my harness back.  I was still in shock at this point.  The staff were so amazed that I had actually jumped after being so terrified that they offered me a free jump, which much to Glenn’s disappointment I turned down.  It was definitely an adrenalin rush and possibly the scariest thing I’ve ever done.  It was enjoyable in hindsight and I would probably do it again, but the falling facedown was something I never could have imagined.
We were greeted back at the café by Jemma and Mum who were amazed I had done it too.  Jemma and Glenn decided to do a tandem bridge swing so Mum and I watched from the café while they did it.  I think the bridge swing would be really good fun because you get a good view, whereas with the bungee you’re falling and spinning too fast to really see anything.  We all bought the videos and photos of our jumps as a keepsake and headed back to Fawlty Towers.  The videos are hilarious.  In mine I scream all the way down whilst flapping my arms, perhaps in an attempt to reverse.  You can clearly see the painful point where the bungee snapped me back up.  In Jem and Glenn’s, Jemma makes a strange rumbling noise all the way down which she said was from the pure G force pushing against her face.  After a relaxed afternoon back in the pool we got a taxi back to Katima.  Thankfully the journey home was a lot less eventful than the first one.

Attack of the Puff Adder

So after 2 days of traveling, having finally reached Katima, Jemma and Glenn lead us down the sand path through the bush to their house in the Zambezi Fish Farm.  At the first sight it’s very sweet; the outside walls are painted light green and the roof is thatched.  It’s not exactly thatching as we know it, more of a thin layer of dried grass over a wooden structure.  The door is locked with a padlock that holds a metal bar across the inside of the door.  Stepping into the house there is the kitchen, which comprises of a sink, one cupboard and a small wooden counter that is attached to part of a tree that grows through the centre of the floor.  On the other side of the counter is the living room, which has two entire walls from waist height to the roof with just open space; it‘s so hot in Katima all year round that it‘s largely pointless having a completely enclosed house, plus it‘s cheaper than using glass.  Instead of being windows there are metal grids (for security) which are covered with mesh to stop the bugs swarming you.  It does have a few holes in the mesh so it doesn’t always work so well for the latter.  Then to the right of the living room is the bedroom (which does have glass in the windows) and the bathroom.  The bathroom has the usual sink and toilet, with a small extra tiled room for the shower which is basically a hose with a shower head on the end pinned into the ceiling.  When you use the shower you get an electric shock from the taps, it definitely keeps you on your toes.  From this room there is a metal grid door leading to an open air room with a bath.  It took me quite a while to have to guts to use the bath, as Jemma informed me that about a week before we arrived there was a killer bees nest underneath it.  It’s very homely (mainly because of Jemma’s hangings etc) and has a nice comfortable feel to it despite the concrete floor and lack of ceiling.  When you look up you can see the wooden structure of the house and the underneath of the thatch.

The Zambezi Fish Farm used to be a working fish farm but is now more of a residential plot.  It’s mostly bush with houses scattered about in between.  There is a set of stables with 6 horses and loads of overgrown dams remaining from when it was still a working farm.  It has a huge wire fence surrounding it which is alarmed and also electric (I found out the hard way).  Being so close to the Zambezi, you tend to get people swimming across the river from Zambia to come and steal things.  It’s quite common for people to steal things they need; cutlery, car tyres, crockery etc.  While I was there we woke up one morning to find that they had stolen 2 wheels from the car, alloys and all.  We think they were going for all four but must have got disturbed.  They also nicked half of the Cluedo set, a bottle of vodka and two chairs that we’d left in the garden.  Apparently they’d cut a hole in the surrounding fence, I’m not entirely sure how they got round the alarm and electric shock.
Having had a tour of the house we settled down on our first night in Namibia to catch up on all the gossip.  Mum and I hadn’t seen Jemma since January and it was the first time we’d met Glenn so there was a lot to catch up on.  I was sat by the back door (which was open) stroking Henry the cat.  After a while I noticed him buckling and slowly backing away from me.  I turned around to see what he was scared of and there was a snake slowly making it’s way towards me.  It was less than a meter away.  Having never been particularly bothered by snakes I merely pointed at it and said “oh look, a snake”.  Glenn jumps up from his seat and shouts at me to get the hell away from it as it’s a Puff Adder.  Mum’s trying to peer round the table to get a look at it with Jemma dragging her backwards.  I pick up Henry and move into the kitchen while Glenn grabs an axe and tries to persuade it to go back out the house.  With all the commotion it decides to turn around and head back out, until it comes face to face with Oscar, the other cat.  Oscar’s a tiny little female cat but seems to lack a sense of fear, no matter how big the thing she’s facing (she seems to think that a huge water monitor is no match for her, much to the distress of Jemma).  Glenn has no choice but to kill the snake (it’s either that or Oscar’s going to die) so he brings the axe down on it.  It turns out that dead snake smells really bad, it took days to get rid of the smell.  On the bright side the appearance of the Puff Adder meant that the Black Mamba must have gone from the roof as snakes tend to be territorial.  It was a real shame we had to kill it, especially as it was only a baby but regardless of my love for all living creatures (apart from bugs) I think I’d rather kill the snake than watch it kill the cat.

The novelty of the house wore off after a few days when I’d be sat reading my book and bugs would drop out of the roof into my hair.  In the first few weeks of me being in Namibia it was unbearably hot, at one point it reached 51 degrees.  The heat brings out the cicadas which are huge beetle like things that have clear stained glass type wings.  They are harmless but seem to love flying into me, I really hate them.  Glenn thought it was hilarious to catch them and shake them at me (when they‘re threatened they make a horrible scream like noise), watching me shriek with terror and run away.  Oscar seems to think it’s great fun to lie on her side and bat them with her paw, she tends to lose interest when she’s killed them enough to stop screaming though.  To add to the cicadas there seem to be hundreds of different types of wasps.  They are less aggressive than our wasps but have dangly legs that are a bit creepy.  The sort of fly around aimlessly, not really knowing where they want to go.  With the house being quite open all of the bugs make their way in.  There were hundreds of crickets, frogs, dung beetles, wasps, bees, flies, millipedes, centipedes, beetles and not to mention spiders.  The bugs are absolutely huge as they don’t need to use their energy to heat themselves so they use it to grow instead.  The worst of all are definitely the Huntsman spiders. They are huge, horrible quick moving things that scuttle across the floor.  They are also harmless but when one’s around I tend to stand on the sofa and refuse to get down until it’s been dealt with.  We think we have found a fail safe way of figuring out if something is poisonous; if I run away screaming it’s harmless, if it doesn’t scare me it’s poisonous.  Also on the first night I noticed a spider sat next to me on the floor, it wasn’t particularly big so didn’t really bother me.  I picked up a piece of paper and prodded it to see if it would run away, then Glenn’s huge foot appeared and squashes it.  He had a quizzical look and commented “that was poisonous!?!”  I think he had worked out by this point that I’m not the best judge of dangerous creatures.
When the rainy season started in mid November there were non stop thunder storms and torrential downpours.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  The whole sky is constantly flashing with lightning for hours on end and the rain is so heavy that the noise is deafening.  Another joy of the thatch is that it tends to leak.  Oh and as well as the rain causing the electricity to go out it also causes the termites to hatch.  There are thousands of them flying around every time it rains.  They’re horrible little things and are equipped with wings for one flight to find somewhere to go and build a nest.  There would constantly be a swarm of them climbing the mesh of the windows, unfortunately they would usually find a hole to break through so we would have loads of them flying around the house.   Once they’ve landed their wings fall off so on top of the creepy little gits crawling along you would also find disgusting wings everywhere.  The first night it happened I spent hours squashing them until I decided I was fighting a losing battle.  After that I just kind of got used to them.  Apparently if you fry them and eat them they taste a bit like butter.
I think I’m definitely not cut out for the ‘wildlife’ of Africa.  I spent every evening securely tucking in my mosquito net, not to avoid the mosquitoes (although they did seem to enjoy my foreign blood and I have the scars to prove it) but to be sure that no spiders could come crawling across me while I was asleep.

This Is Africa

So it all started with a 4 hour train ride to Heathrow followed by a 2 hour flight to Madrid, then a 13 hour flight to Johannesburg.  The amusing thing when we arrived at Madrid was the small number of us changing flights to carry on to Jo’burg had been directed to a different exit, which was locked.  We found ourselves inside a very clean, glass walled passport check station, with no one manning the desks and none of the doors open, with less than an hour to go before our next flight departed.  Eventually the cleaner took pity on us and opened one of the side exits through which we all scrambled and literally ran to our gate.  I very much doubt the plane would have left with a whole chunk of their passengers missing but it doesn’t make you feel any better about it at the time.
After a very uncomfortable and long flight we landed in Jo’burg mid morning on the 25th October.  The airport was absolutely spotless and the staff seemed friendly enough, it was not at all what I expected after hearing all the stories about this city.  Stepping out the airport I opened my hand luggage only to find that I had accidentally smuggled a banana into South Africa.  I’m not sure how customs expect to find drugs on people when they fail to spot a banana in a bag which had gone through the scanner, but maybe I didn’t look shifty enough for them to take any notice?
We got on the Gautrain with no struggle whatsoever, only a slight sideways glance at the armed security guards accompanying the odd person.  The Gautrain is similar to the tube but over-ground and a hell of a lot cleaner; London could certainly learn a thing or two.  It is apparently pretty safe to use most of the time, perhaps not advisable to travel at night but we didn’t have any problems.  It doesn’t have many stops though so when we’d gone as far as it would take us we jumped into the taxi that was waiting for us.
We had booked a nice bed & breakfast to stay in which turned out to be in the ‘millionaires area’ of Jo’burg - Sandton.  It wasn’t massively expensive but with all the warnings we’d had about the city we decided we’d rather be somewhere safe.  As we drove further away from the airport the first thing we noticed was the security; every building had barbed wire, electric fences, remote controlled gates and alarms.  Although this is obviously to provide protection it doesn’t help you feeling that this is not a safe place to be.  When we arrived at the B&B it was within a residential complex complete with an armed guard and electric barrier.  Further into the complex when we found the actual building, this was protected with high walls, barbed wire and electric gates that were also padlocked.  All very strange and slightly unnerving.  It brings about images of huge groups of people trying to attack the city.  The B&B was beautiful.  We spent most of the day lazing by the pool and catching up on the sleep we’d missed out from our 24 hours of traveling.

The next day it was back to the airport again for our flight to Kasane, Botswana.  The guy at the luggage check in found my pronunciation of Kasane hilarious, leaving us even more confused than we were in the first place.  We were baffled by the ‘firearms check-in’ direction signs and then even more so when we came to get on the plane, which was possibly the smallest commercial plane I’ve ever seen.  The signs on the back of your chair that instruct you to use the cushion as a floatation device (instead of having life jackets) doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence.  Having said that the flight was very comfortable and over within a few hours.  When the plane landed we got out onto the runway and literally walked across it to the tiny building situated at the side.  Through one door, thoroughly questioned by one stroppy looking lady and out the other side into the open air again to find Jem and Glenn waiting for us.  It turns out that their car had blown the head gasket on the way to the airport, so we were going to get a taxi back.  Luckily they had broken down close to a town and not in an open stretch of bush so had managed to get help reasonably quickly.  They both looked surprising relaxed about the situation.
We all crammed into a taxi that took us through the edge of Chobe National Park to the Ngoma border between Botswana and Namibia.  On the drive through Chobe we saw zebras, elephants and giraffes.  They tend not to stray near the road so we were lucky to see anything.  The elephants had a couple of babies with them which the mothers stood over to protect whilst glaring a warning at us, it was hilarious.  It costs too much for the taxis to cross the border so rather than stay in the same one we decided to grab a different one on the other side.  The walk between the borders gives you a real view of the African countryside… nothing but bush for miles around.  There are no towns between Katima and the border, it literally is just sand, trees and bushes.  There are hundreds of villages starting from the edge of the trees lining the roads though, comprising of mud huts with grass roofs.  The villagers don’t tend to take kindly to people nosing around so I’m not sure if they’d be any help if you broke down.
Once we had got to the Namibian side of the border there was only one vehicle there; a tatty looking mini-bus with cracked windows and copious amounts of rust.  The driver was nowhere to be seen but we eventually found him chilling in the shade with a beer.  We all scrambled in and started our journey.  The taxis in Africa (called Rikkis) charge on a person rather than distance basis.  Unless you are going on a longer journey (a couple of hours or so) it costs $10 per person wherever you want to go ($8 if you‘re a local).  To give you an idea of the cost, at the moment the exchange rate is $13 to 1 pound.  So for less than a pound you can jump in a taxi which will take you pretty much anywhere you want to go.  You don’t have the taxis to yourself, they will pick up anyone by the side of the road that sticks their hand out which makes a hell of a lot more sense than the way we do it.  Not only is the driver earning more money by picking up more people, but environmentally it works better too.  You do occasionally end up crammed in with lots of people but they tend to want to get rid of the white people first so you’re never in there for long.  It makes traveling so much easier, why bother getting a car when you can just walk to the road and stick your arm out?
So before long our mini-bus taking us from the border had stopped to pick more people up.  It had a trailer so all the luggage was getting thrown into it while the people were cramming in with us.  The first day we were in Namibia it was 41 degrees C.  Even with all the windows open and the wind blowing continuously in your face it’s still bloody hot, especially with 14 people crammed in with you.  It was certainly the African way to start our adventure.  There is no such thing as an MOT and you don’t need insurance so it’s definitely a different attitude to driving.  We passed people sat in the back of bukkis (pick-up trucks) hanging on for dear life.  This isn’t strictly legal but no one takes any notice.  You quite often see 10-15 people squashed into the back of a truck, all waving at you as you drive past.
The drive seemed to go on for hours, only stopping to pick up more people, drop people off and once for the driver to get more beer.  At least we were allowed to smoke.  Although slightly uncomfortable it was actually an enjoyable drive, definitely an experience.  We finally arrived in Katima Mulilo at the Zambezi Fish Farm, my home for the next several weeks.